MAYFIELD, Ohio — Currently, 52 female CEO's are at the helm of Fortune 500 companies. Northeast Ohio is home to several, including Progressive Insurance CEO Tricia Griffith.
She became the company's first female to hold this position in 2016. But in 1988, when she was a college student with loan debt, Griffith answered an ad for a claims representative, never intending to stay in the insurance industry.
"In fact, I called home and got my mom and said I quit my job and joined Progressive. And she said, 'Oh, the soup company?' And I said, 'No, that's Progresso.'"
She made $19,000 a year, but the experience proved priceless.
"That was 36 and 1/2 years ago. So I never looked back. I fell in love with the culture, the people, coming to work every day and learning something new. And I've loved every moment of it."
We asked whether at any point, especially in those early years, whether she dreamed of becoming CEO?
"Never, no. No, the only person who said that, literally when I was a claims rep trainee, I remember telling my mom what I did. I'm like, I go to body shops and I crawl in her cars and I meet with attorneys and she said, 'Oh, you'll be CEO one day.'"
The grunt work paid off and Griffith says the company mission became clear.
"I was in the harder part of the company because I was with customers when they needed us most, when they had an accident. But love that, you know, because we don't sell anything tangible. We sell trust. And so for me, being able to put my arms around somebody, not literally but figuratively, and take care of them was really important."
Working one's way up from the bottom rung of the ladder has its advantages according to Griffith.
"I think it gives me credibility to know how hard the people that I would say do the real work do and how hard their jobs are and I really understand and empathize with that."
Walking with the Progressive Insurance CEO on campus, is like walking with an A-list celebrity, as we discovered when we walked into Campus Two's lunchroom. A group in from Phoenix for training broke to greet the familiar face and ask for selfies. The lively exchange happened at a time when most of Progressive's employees now either work from home, or maintain a hybrid schedule.
Progressive made Northeast Ohio headlines last year when the company announced it would be consolidating, and campus one would eventually close. For Griffith, the decision was a tough one.
"It was emotional. From a business perspective, it made sense to consolidate. I really, it took me a long time to come to it from my heart because I've been at that campus for a long time."
Griffith came to our interview, from a cookout attended by roughly 650 campus one employees.
" I can't lock the door on campus one at some point and not have everybody have said goodbye to each other and the artwork, but also that gives them the desire to come back more often for those moments that matter."
Though many of those employees considered campus one a second home, including Griffith, the mother of 6 knows her employees value being able to spend more time in their actual homes, with a flexible schedule.
It's familiar territory for the CEO, who has faced her share of obstacles on the way to the top.
"I think for me it was more early on not seeing someone at a higher level that looked like me a female and so I think part of that might have been my confidence of saying well I'll probably hit a ceiling because I don't see anybody higher than that."
What did carry her through, was connecting with advocates who would push her to go further. "They would say, "Tricia you should go for this job." And I do that for other people. And so you get that sort of encouragement and that lifting up from people, both men and women. And then you have that confidence. If you have that confidence, then you have that ability to say, "I can do that job. I know I'm smart. I build great teams and I know I can make this part of the company better." And I continue to do that throughout my career."